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Legendary East Village dive Mars Bar and its neighbors will be replaced with a 12-story, 60-unit apartment building, which means that the next time you step into the bar, it might be your last—at least when talking about Mars in its current scruffy form. Perhaps hoping to tug on these heart strings, recent promos for upcoming events in the watering hole play up the bar's doomed fate. One flyer is pictured above, and later this month there's an event billed as Mars Bar's first and last literary event. Word on the street is that the gentrification holdout might close this spring, though that could just be the whiskey talking.

This thread has been pretty useful but I haven't been able to find a good bar that offers a variety of craft beer. I found The Ginger Man the other day and was impressed. Highly recommended for the avid beer drinker.

This thread has been pretty useful but I haven't been able to find a good bar that offers a variety of craft beer. I found The Ginger Man the other day and was impressed. Highly recommended for the avid beer drinker.

Amity Hall on West 3rd is a good craft beer bar. Nothing on my local in NJ though, Cloverleaf Tavern voted #1 craft beer bar in the North East and #3 in the nation.

Residents of Bedford St. in the West Village have gone to court to block the reopening of the historic pub and former speakeasy that was once a favorite spot for famous writers, artists and activists. They want to overturn the Liquor Authority's decision to give a new license to the pub, which closed in 2007 when the face of the building collapsed.

Photos of famous writers, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, hang on the walls at Chumley’s on Bedford St.

Tony residents of Bedford St. in the West Village have gone to court to block the reopening of Chumley's, an historic pub and former speakeasy that was once a favorite spot for famous writers, artists and activists.
The residents are trying to overturn a decision by the state Liquor Authority to give a new license to the pub, which closed in 2007 when the entire face of its building at 86 Bedford St. collapsed into the street after decades of neglect.

Residents of Bedford St. in the West Village have gone to court to block the reopening of the historic pub Chumley's.

The 47 residents say the West Village is already bombarded by hordes of raucous young people from New Jersey and counties east of Manhattan, who swarm into the neighborhood to take advantage of myriad late night bars.

They contend that even though the new Chumley's will have to close at 1 a.m. during the week and 2 a.m. on weekends, their new patrons will be as "unruly, drunk and extremely loud" as the old ones, who routinely disturbed the peace and quiet of Bedford St. until the building facade's fell.

Nick Saluzzi officiates behind the bar at Chumley's.

"This neighborhood already has enough places to eat and drink. This block cannot tolerate another drinking venue," the residents argue in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
They said the SLA improperly ignored state law, which says there should be no licenses granted if there are three or more other bars within 500 feet of the new establishment. In this instance, the residents say, there are 21 places with liquor licenses within 500 feet of Chumley's.COREY SIPKIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The facade of the building occupied by Chumley's collapsed in 2007.

The residents fighting the reopening of the former speakeasy live on Bedford, Barrow, Grove and Commerce Sts.
The owners of Chumley's could not be reached for comment.

So weird. Just this weekend spontaneously picked up a used copy of "Clubland", about the whole underbelly of the '90s club culture including sanctioned drug dealing, murder, etc. and this guy's story was in it. He seems more concerned about his notoriety than anything else.

NEW YORK (AP) — Notorious "club kid" killer Michael Alig has been released from prison after serving 17 years for killing his roommate over a drug debt.
Alig was released from the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, N.Y., on Monday.

Alig, 48, was part of a decadent 1990s party scene characterized by wild costumes and rampant drug use. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 1997 for killing Andre "Angel" Melendez.
Alig admitted that he and co-defendant Robert "Freeze" Riggs killed Melendez, cut the body up and dumped the parts in the Hudson River. Riggs also pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was released in 2010.

The story was turned into the 2003 movie "Party Monster," in which Macaulay Culkin played Alig. The newly freed Alig joked on Twitter that so many cameras were recording his release he felt like Kim Kardashian. He also tweeted a photo of his "first burrito of freedom."

Alig maintained a social media presence while behind bars although he had no access to a computer, dictating tweets to a friend over the prison phone.
According to his Twitter bio, he is finishing a book he wrote in prison titled "Aligula."